George  Washington  Flowers 
Memorial  Collection 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

ESTABLISHED  BY  THE 
FAMILY  OF 
COLONEL  FLOWERS 


XIII. 

WHITE  HAVEN  CHURCH 
— AND— 

THE  REV.  ROBERT  JOHNSTON  MILLER. 

BY  THE  REV.  JOS.  BLOUNT  CHESHIRE,  JR. 
I. 

WHITE  HAVEN. 

White  Haven  Church  stood  on  the  east  side  of  the  old 
plank  road  from  Charlotte  to  Lincolnton,  about  sixteen 
miles  from  Charlotte,  and  one  mile  south  of  the  present 
village  of  Lowesville.  Lowesville  is  in  Lincoln  county, 
but  the  site  of  the  old  church  is  now  within  the  county  of 
Gaston.  An  old  grave-yard,  surrounded  by  a  dry  stone 
wall,  identifies  the  locality,  and  back  of  the  grave-yard  a 
few  scattered  trunks,  dead  and  fast  decaying,  of  what  were 
once  noble  chestnuts,  mark  the  spot  where  the  humble  log 
church  stood  beneath  their  shade.  A  Presbyterian  church, 
called  Castauia,  stands  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  a  hun- 
dred or  two  yards  nearer  to  Lowesville.  A  few  of  the 
older  inhabitants  of  the  country,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Catawba,  remember  when  the  old  church  was  standing, 
and  a  few  old  men  still  recall  the  fact  that  they  wrere 
baptized  by  Parson  Miller;  but,  even  its  immediate  neigh- 
borhood, many  of  the  people  are  ignorant  of  the  sacred 
associations  of  the  spot. 

On  the  ioth  of  August,  1885,  by  the  kindness  of  a  friend, 
Mr.  Frank  Blythe,  I  was  taken  to  this  interesting  spot. 


37° 

My  companion  had  been  baptized  in  infancy  by  Parson 
Miller,  and  as  a  boy  had  been  sent  by  his  mother,  who  had 
been  brought  up  in  that  church,  to  take  part  with  other 
neighbors  in  the  annual  cleaning  up  of  the  grave-yard. 
But  for  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  locality,  I  should 
have  been  unable  to  identify  the  site  of  the  church,  as 
none  of  the  neighbors  could  give  me  any  certain  informa- 
tion in  regard  to  it.  Some  who  knew  that  a  church  had 
once  stood  there,  were  not  sure  of  its  having  been  the  orig- 
inal White  Haven,  since  another  church  of  that  name  had 
once  stood  about  two  miles  north  of  Lowesville. 

The  grave-yard  is  still  used,  as  some  new-made  graves 
and  fresh  grave-stones  bore  witness.  None  of  the  stones 
were  of  an  early  date.  I  was  told  that  the  oldest  graves 
were  just  north  of  the  present  enclosure,  outside  the  stone 
wall.  The  earliest  date  discovered  was  1804;  and  the  next 
oldest  1827.  None  were  of  any  special  interest.  The 
earliest  was  the  most  curious,  and  the  following  inscrip- 
tion on  it  may  possibly  have  been  an  effusion  of  Parson 
Miller's  muse: 

HERE  LIES  THE  BODY  OF 

BURCH A  T  T    K I M  B  E  L h E  , 

WHO  WAS  BORN  MARCH  2oth,  1782, 
AND  DIED 
OCTOBER  17th,  A.  D. ,  1804. 

Early,  not  sudden,  was  her  fate. 

Soon,  not  surprising,  Death  his  visit  paid. 

Her  thought  went  forth  to  meet  him  on  his  way; 

Nor  gaiety  forgot  it  was  to  die. 

I  >oes  youth,  does  beauty  read  the  line  ? 

Does  sympathetic  fear  their  breast  alarm  ? 

Speak,  dead  Burchatt !  breathe  a  strain  divine; 

Even  from  the  grave  thou  shalt  have  power  to  charm. 

Bid  them  give  each  day  the  merit  and  renown 

Of  dying  well,  though  doomed  but  once  to  die, 


37 1 

The  young  lady  whose  mortal  remains  lie  buried  beneath 
this  stone,  was  much  admired  and  beloved,  and  her  death 
caused  wide-spread  grief.  Persons  now  living  can  i\  c  al! 
the  feeling  of  general  sorrow  at  her  death,  which  lingered 
long  in  the  community,  and  which  confirmed  the  testimo- 
ny of  this  epitaph  to  her  personal  charms  and  the  graces 
of  her  character. 

We  were  especially  interested  in  two  other  stones — sim- 
ple, undressed  pieces  of  rough  granite — at  the  head  of  two 
graves  side  by  side,  with  only  the  inscription  klC.  N., 
June,  183 1,"  and  UM.  N.n  These  my  friend  was  able  to 
identify  by  the  initials,  the  date,  and  the  later  head-stones 
near  by,  as  marking  the  graves  of  his  grand-father  and 
grand-mother,  Clement  Nantz,  and  Martha  his  wife. 

The  following  account  of  this  old  church  is  derived 
from  various  sources,  printed  documents,  MSS.  and  oral 
tradition. 

The  Rev.  Robert  Johnston  Miller,  a  Scotchman  by  birth, 
and  a  Methodist  preacher  on  the  Tar  River  Circuit  in 
1785 — having  withdrawn  from  the  Conference,  because  he 
found  that  the  Methodists  were  departing  from  the  Church, 
settled  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Catawba  River  in  1786.  At 
the  request  of  the  people  of  "White  Haven  and  the  lower 
and  upper  Smyrna"  he  began  to  act  as  lay-reader,  keeping 
up  the  public  services  on  Sunday  and  catechising  the 
children.  His  congregations  were  chiefly  settled  along 
the  west  bank  of  the  Catawba  River  in  the  count)'  of  Lin- 
coln, though  much  of  that  region  is  now  included  within 
the  later  county  of  Gaston.  "They  were  chiefly  emigrants 
from  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,"  lka  mixed 
people,  Germans,  English,  Irish,  and  some  Scotch,  origi- 
nally, but  at  that  time  very  destitute  of  any  regular  re- 
ligious instructions."  "The  most  of  them  and  their  fore- 
fathers were,  and  had  been,  members  of  the  Episcopal 
Church." 

A  congregation  was  organized,  a  vestry  elected,  and 


P42091 


372 


application  was  made  to  the  General  Assembly  for  an  Act 
of  Incorporation.  Prayer  Books  could  not  be  obtained. 
They  had  a  few  of  the  English  books,  and  Mr.  Miller  pro- 
cured two  copies  of  the  first  edition  of  the  American  Book 
published  in  Philadelphia.  He  also  had  printed  at  Salis- 
bury the  Church  Catechism,  to  which  he  added  some  ex- 
planations of  Church  principles  and  usages. 

The  most  numerous  religious  denomination  with  which 
he  was  brought  in  contact  seems  to  have  been  the  Luth- 
erans, and  their  system  of  worship  and  doctrine  made  them 
more  congenial  to  him  as  a  Churchman  than  the  Presby- 
terians, his  only  other  neighbors.  They  were  very  greatly 
in  need  of  ministers,  and  they  urged  Mr.  Miller  to  accept 
ordination  at  their  hands,  and  to  co-operate  with  them. 
His  own  congregations  recommended  the  same  course,  and 
the  Lutherans  alleged  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Pilmour  of  Phil- 
adelphia, a  very  eminent  divine  in  the  Episcopal  Church, 
had  taken  this  course  during  the  Revolutionary  war.  Mr. 
Miller  yielded,  though  he  confesses  that  he  was  never 
quite  able  to  satisfy  himself  that  he  had  acted  agreeably  to 
his  principles  in  so  doing.  But  it  was  distinctly  under- 
stood on  all  hands  that  Mr.  Miller  remained  an  Episcopa- 
lian, and  this  understanding  was  endorsed  upon  the  Letter 
of  Orders  given  him  by  the  Lutheran  ministers.  This 
matter,  however,  will  be  more  properly  considered  in  con- 
nection with  Mr.  Miller's  personal  history;  we  are  now 
more  particularly  concerned  with  the  affairs  of  White 
Haven  Parish. 

It  was  soon  after  Mr.  Miller  took  charge  of  White 
Haven,  and  before  his  Lutheran  ordination,  that  the  few 
remaining  clergy  in  the  East  began  the  effort  to  organize 
a  Diocese  in  the  State  of  North  Carolina.  Though  officiat- 
ing oniy  as  Lay-reader,  he  seems  to  have  been  elected  a 
clerical  member  of  the  Standing  Committee  by  the  Con- 
vention of  November  21st,  1793;  and  immediately  after 
his  ordination  he  attended  the  meeting  of  May  28th,  1794, 


373 


and  voted  as  one  of  the  Clergy  in  the  election  of  the  Rev. 
Charles  Pettigrew  as  Bishop.  His  name  will  be  found 
among  the  names  of  the  Clergy  in  the  signatures  appended 
to  the  Certificate  of  that  election. 

Although  Mr.  Pettigrew  was  never  consecrated,  he  ex- 
erted himself  to  revive  the  interests  of  the  Church 
throughout  the  State,  and  carried  on  an  extensive  cor- 
respondence to  this  end.  Among  other  letters  preserved 
by  him  is  one  from  Mr.  Miller,  the  most  material  parts  ot 
which  are  as  follows  : 

White  Haven,  6th  of  May,  1795. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Sir  : 

********* 

I  have  reason  to  hope  that  your  pious  wishes  and  charitable  supposi- 
tions will  be  verified  in  the  Rev.  Mr.  Dent,  although  I  have  not  had  an 
opportunity  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with  him  as  yet;  but  those  who 
have,  assure  me  that  he  is  generally  esteemed  as  a  man  of  piety  and 
learning,  which  to  us,  in  our  present  situation,  is,  I  hope,  no  small 
acquisition.* 

The  situation  of  the  Lutheran  Clergy  in  this  quarter,  in  my  opinion, 
demands  immediate  attention.  They  have,  since  my  last  to  you,  lost 
their  senior  member,  the  Rev.  Mr.  A.  Nussman,  a  truly  worthy,  learned, 
and  Godly  man,  although  bred  a  Franciscan.  Some  of  them  have  ex- 
pressed a  desire  of  sending  forward  a  number  of  their  body  to  our  Con- 
vention, in  order  to  form  some  bonds  of  coalescing,  and  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that,  should  such  a  circumstance  take  place,  and  the  end  accom- 
plished with  propriety,  it  would  be  beneficial  to  both  parties;  but  of  this 
you  would  be  a  much  better  judge,  were  you  to  vi.sit  this  quarter  in  your 
official  character;  and  you  will  permit  me  to  hope  that  the  period  is  not 
far  distant. 

********* 

As  for  myself  and  flock,  I  have  abundant  reason  to  be  thankful  to  God 
for  health  of  body  and  peace  of  mind,  although  my  progress  in  the 
knowledge,  love,  and  service  of  Him  is  far  too  torpid;  but  with  some  of 
my  charge,  at  least,  I  hope  it  is  otherwise,  and  may  God  of  His  mercy 
grant  that  it  may  soon  be  generally  so. 

The  returns  from  the  Register  of  Baptisms,  from  Easter  ninety-four 
to  Easter  ninety -five,  is  eighty-five  infants  and  nine  adults;  and  the  deaths 
are  three  venerable  and  Godly  old  men,  from  eighty-seven  to  ninety-five 
years  of  age,  one  woman  *  *  *  and  her  infant,  *  *  *  and  a  man 
about  foity -six.    *    *    *  * 

We  suffer  much  for  a  sufficient  supply  of  Prayer  Books  here,  and  it  is 

*For  Rev.  Hatch  Dent:  See  Note  at  the  end  of  this  Article. 


P42093 


374 

a  great  bar  to  uniformity  in  our  public  assemblies  in  the  outward  mode  of 
worship;  and  I  sincerely  wish  that  some  effectual  means  could  be  devised 
to  remedy  this  evil. 

I  am,  my  dear  and  Reverend  Sir, 

Your  Son  and  affectionate  Friend  in  the  Gospel, 

R.  J.  MirxER. 
The  Rev.  Mr.  Pettigrew,  Biskop-elect  of  North  Carolina. 

After  this  letter  we  have  no  further  knowledge  of  White 
Haven  for  many  years.  Mr.  Miller  had  extended  his 
labors  over  a  large  territory,  and  in  1806  he  removed  to 
Burke  county,  where  he  had  a  plantation  about  two  miles 
from  the  present  town  of  Lenoir,  now  in  Caldwell  county. 
He  continued  to  visit  his  old  congregation  at  intervals, 
but  of  the  particulars  of  its  history  we  know  nothing. 

His  age  and  increasing  infirmities  together  with  the  dis- 
tance, soon  forced  him  to  give  up  the  charge  of  White 
Haven,  which  was  about  seventy-five  miles  from  Mary's 
Grove,  his  residence  in  Burke  county.  He  therefore 
recommended  to  his  people  a  young  Lutheran  licentiate, 
David  Henckel.  Though  organized  as  an  Episcopal 
church,  twenty  years  without  Episcopal  ministrations,  and 
under  the  pastorate  of  a  minister  in  Lutheran  orders,  had 
left  very  little  knowledge  of  the  Church  or  her  principles 
among  the  members  of  White  Haven.  They  therefore  ac- 
cepted the  services  of  David  Henckel,  and  he  continued  to 
minister  to  them  for  several  years.  From  time  to  time 
Mr.  Miller  would  visit  his  old  flock  and  conduct  the  pub- 
lic services  of  the  Church  for  them.  Upon  one  of  these 
visits  some  misunderstanding  arose  between  the  two  about 
the  use  of  the  church,  both  having  made  appointments  for 
the  same  day.  This  resulted  in  the  building  of  another 
church  by  Henckel  and  his  adherents  a  mile  or  two  north 
of  where  Lowesville  now  stands,  which  was  also  called 
White  Haven  Church. 

David  Henckel  made  a  great  figure  in  the  history  of 
Southern  Lutheranism.  He  became  the  leader  of  a  Con- 
servative, or  more  properly  a  re-actionary,  party  among 


375 


the  Lutherans,  who  at  this  time  had  drifted  very  far  from 
their  standard  of  doctrine  and  worship.  He  was  an  asser- 
ter  and  maintainer  of  the  conservative  and  sacramental 
system  held  by  the  old  Lutherans  and  set  forth  in  the 
Augsburg  Confession;  and  he  set  himself  manfully  to 
oppose  the  tendency  of  his  brethren  towards  the  baldness 
and  emptiness  of  Zwinglianism.  This  gave  great  offense 
to  all  persons  outside  the  Lutheran  Communion,  and  cre- 
ated the  greatest  division  of  opinion  and  the  fiercest  con- 
tention also  among  themselves.  David  Henckel  was 
looked  upon  by  Methodists  and  other  Protestant  dissenters, 
as  no  better  than  a* Romanist,  and  the  most  extravagant 
accounts  were  given  of  his  teaching  in  regard  to  confession 
and  the  power  of  absolution.  The  controversy  among  the 
Lutherans  themselves  led  to  a  schism  which  is  not  entirely 
healed  even  now.  A  large  number  of  Lutherans,  mostly 
in  Tennessee,  but  also  many  congregations  in  North  Car- 
olina, organized  the  Tennessee  Synod,  under  the  influence 
of  this  new  zeal  for  their  old  doctrines,  and  were  known 
as  ( 'Henckelites. "  So  bitter  was  the  controversy  between 
the  two  factions  that  there  was  some  times  danger  of 
bloodshed  when  the  parties  met.  Upon  one  occasion,  at 
least,  the  congregation  of  St.  John's  Church,  Cabarrus 
county,  went  to  the  Sunday  service  armed  with  their  rifles, 
and  prepared  to  use  them  in  resisting  an  expected  attempt 
of  the  "Henckelites"  to  get  possession  of  the  building. 
This  however  is  a  digression:  White  Haven  Church  had 
no  connection  with  these  matters. 

The  story  of  the  old  parish  is  almost  ended.  It  never 
enjoyed  the  benefits  of  regular  ministerial  serv  ices,  and  it 
is  only  strange  that  it  survived  as  long  as  it  did.  Any 
vigorous  or  aggressive  life  was,  under  the  circumstances, 
impossible.  The  stubborn  loyalty  of  Parson  Miller's 
Scotch  blood,   supported  chiefly  by  the  sympathy  and 

*  Genl.  Rufus  Barringer  is  my  authority  for  this.  He  remembers  the 
fact  himself. 


3/6 

co-operation  of  the  Abernathys — of  the  same  Scotch  Epis- 
copal stock — made  this  gallant  fight  for  their  mother 
Church.*  They  had  brought  with  them  into  the  new 
country  the  love  of  their  old  Church,  and  they  did  all 
that  they  could  to  perpetuate  it,  but  their  children  not 
unnaturally  fell  away  to  other  religious  bodies.  Some 
families  ot  intelligence  and  culture,  and  also  some  of  the 
plainer  but  substantial  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood, 
adhered  in  feeling  to  the  Church  long  after  they  had 
ceased  to  enjoy  its  ministrations.  The  names  of  Forney, 
Abernathey,  Shipp,  Nantz,  Hager,  Robinson,  Burton, 
Fite,  are  still  associated  with  the  memory  of  the  old 
parish,  and  indicate  both  its  original  Scotch  and  English 
elements,  and  also  its  curious  connection  with  the  Ger- 
man Lutherans. 

The  revival  of  the  Church  in  North  Carolina  under 
Bishop  Ravenscroft  and  Bishop  Ives,  came  too  late  for 
White  Haven.  After  the  organization  of  the  Diocese,  the 
Church  was  too  weak  and  too  ill- furnished  with  ministers 
to  look  properly  after  this  distant  and  scattered  flock. 
The  parish  of  White  Haven  was  indeed  admitted  to  the 
Convention  of  the  Diocese  under  the  nominal  rectorship 
of  Parson  Miller  in  1822:  in  1828  Dr.  Wm.  Johnson  (who 
however  was  not  a  member  of  the  Church,)  was  appointed 
by  the  Convention  to  solicit  among  the  parishioners  funds 
in  aid  of  the  Diocesan  Missionary  Society;  and  in  1824 
Robert  H.  Burton  and  Daniel  M.  Forney  were  appointed 
Lay-readers.  Bishop  Ravenscroft  made  two  visitations  to 
the  Church  in  1824,  and  confirmed  sixteen  persons,  proba- 
bly the  old  communicants  who  had'  never  before  had  an 
opportunity  of  receiving  the  Laying  on  of  Hands.  But 

*  Mrs.  Nancy  Johnson  (nee  Forney)  was  brought  up  in  this  congrega- 
tion, and  she  remembered  very  distinctly  that  the  Abernatheys  were 
Parson  Miller's  chief  supporters;  and  she  connected  the  final  and  utter 
failure  of  the  Church  at  White  Haven  with  the  removal  of  the  principal 
part  of  the  Abernathey  family  to  Missouri. 


377 


Bishop  Ravenscroft  saw  clearly,  as  he  intimates  in  his 
address  to  the  Convention  of  1826,  that  there  was  little 
hope  of  the  continuance  of  the  congregation.  Some  of  the 
original  Church  people  had  been  for  so  long  practically 
identified  with  the  Lutherans,  that  they  had  unconsciously 
become  estranged  from  the  Church,  of  which  they  had 
never  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing  much,  and  in  whose 
practical  system  of  doctrine  and  worship  they  had  not  been 
trained.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  this  was  the  period  of 
the  great  exodus  from  North  Carolina  to  the  West  and  the 
South-West,  many  members  of  this  congregation  about 
this  time  and  shortly  afterwards  having  joined  the  great 
tide  of  emigration,  and  the  decay  and  extinction  of  the  old 
parish  is  readily  accounted  for. 

Mr.  Miller  continued  for  some  years  to  make  occasional 
mention  of  Wnite  Haven  in  his  annual  reports;  but  in 
1833  when  Bishop  Ives  made  his  first  visitation  to  this 
part  of  the  Diocese,  he  could  find  but  three  or  four  persons 
who  still  adhered  to  the  Church,  though  he  says  he  made 
"diligent  inquiry. 

The  Rev.  Edward  M.  Forbes  began  his  work  in  Lin- 
coln county  in  1841;  but  in  his  report  he  makes  no  men- 
tion of  any  parish  or  congregation  as  then  existing  in  the 
county.  About  1842  he  seems  to  have  begun  services  at 
White  Haven;  and  his  successor  in  the  Mission  field,  the 
Rev.  A.  F.  Ol instead,  reports  a  visitation  of  the  Bishop, 
made  July  26th  and  27th,  1843,  anc^  seven  confirmations: 
also  fourteen  communicants.  The  Bishop  in  his  address 
to  the  Convention  speaks  of  this  Church  as  "St.  Mary's 
Chapel,  White  Haven."  but  the  name  is  not  known  to 
have  been  used  in  any  other  instance.  July  19th,  1844, 
the  Bishop  made  another  visitation  to  White  Haven,  and 
Juh'  15th,  1845,  a  third  and  last.  In  1846,  Mr.  Olmstead 
left  Lincoln  county,  and  with  him  the  history  of  White 
Haven  Church  closes.  The  Rev.  Joseph  C.  Huske  had 
charge  of  St.   Luke's  Church,   Lincolnton,  and  Grace 


378 


Church,  Morgan  ton,  from  1847  to  1851,  and  April  25th, 
1849,  ne  neld  a  service  at  White  Haven,  baptized  an  infant, 
and  preached  from  the  text:  "Notwithstanding,  be  ye  sure 
of  this,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  come  nigh  unto  you." 

The  ancient  services  of  the  Church  were  heard  no  more 
in  White  Haven  Church.  It  fell  rapidly  to  decay  after 
this.  Persons  whose  memory  goes  back  for  thirty  years  or 
more,  remember  the  site  only  as  it  is  at  present — a  culti- 
vated field.  But  doubtless  there  is  a  spiritual  conserva- 
tion of  force,  as  well  as  a  material,  and  the  work  done  for 
God  in  those  old  walls  has  gone  to  add  to  the  power  of 
His  truth  and  kingdom  in  some  other  place. 

II. 

THE  REV.  ROBERT  JOHNSTON  MILLER. 

There  is  no  more  interesting  character  in  the  annals  of 
the  Church  in  North  Carolina  than  the  man  whose  name 
is  written  above.  In  the  course  of  a  long  life  he  had 
strange  ecclesiastical  experiences.  He  himself  tells  us  that 
in  the  perplexities  of  his  situation  he  did  not  always  suc- 
ceed in  making  a  correct  application  of  his  principles  to 
the  facts  before  him;  he  sometimes  felt  that  he  had  made 
very  serious  mistakes.  Yet  no  one  can  study  his  history 
without  feeling  that  even  in  his  mistakes  of  judgment  he 
displayed  noble  qualities  of  heart.  The  following  sketch 
of  his  life  is  meager,  and  yet  perhaps  sufficient  to  set  forth 
the  man  as  he  was,  and  to  preserve  the  incidents  of  his 
life  so  far  as  they  have  a  general  interest  or  an  important 
connection  with  the  history  of  the  Church  in  North  Caro- 
lina. The  principle  sources  of  information  are  his  letter 
to  Dr.  Hawks,  dated  "Mary's  Grove,  Burke  county,  N. 
C,  April  15th,  1830,"  (which  appeared  first  in  the  Church 
Revieiv,  and  was  reprinted  in  the  Church  Messenger  of 
October  15th,  1879),  and  Dr.  Bernheim's  "History  of  the 
German  Settlements  and  Lutheran  Churches  in  Carolina." 


379 


Dr.  Bernheim's  information  was  derived  from  Parson  Mil- 
ler's son,  the  late  Elisha  P.  Miller,  of  Caldwell  county, 
whom  Dr.  Bernheim  visited  during  the  year  1862.  We 
owe  to  this  diligent  Lutheran  histoiian  most  of  our  know- 
ledge of  the  particulars  of  Mr.  Miller's  life. 

Robert  Johnston  Miller,  the  third  son  of  George  and 
Margaret  Miller,  was  born  in  Baldovia,  Angusshire/  Scot- 
land, July  nth,  1758.  His  parents  are  said  to  have  in- 
tended him  for  the  ministry,  and  with  this  view  to  have  sent 
him  to  a  classical  school  at  Dundee.  He  was  bred  up  in 
"the  Catholic  remainder"  of  the  ancient  Church  of  Scot- 
land, under  the  pastoral  care  of  the  venerable  Bishop 
Raile*  so  long  as  he  remained  in  his  native  country;  but 
when  he  was  fifteen  years  old  his  elder  brother,  then  a 
prosperous  merchant  in  Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  in- 
vited him  to  make  his  home  with  him,  and  he  therefore 
came  to  America  in  1774.  During  the  Revolutionary  war 
he  was  in  the  American  Arm}',  and  took  part  in  the  bat- 
tles of  Long  Island,  Brandy  wine  and  White .  Plains,  in 
the  first  of  which  he  received  a  flesh  wound  in  the  face. 
He  was  with  the  army  during  the  memorable  winter  at 
Valley  Forge.  He  came  South  towards  the  close  of  the 
war,  probably  when  Washington  made  his  famous  move 
upon  Cornwallis,  which  resulted  in  the  Surrender  at  York- 
town;  and  was  in  Virginia  when  he  was  mustered  out  of 
the  service.  He  seems  not  to  have  returned  to  New  Eng- 
land, but  to  have  remained  in  Virginia,  in  what  business 
or  occupation  is  not  known. 

At  this  period  of  his  life  he  became  identified  with  the 
Methodists,  who  were  gaining  great  influence  through 
Virginia  and  some  parts  of  North  Carolina,  and  who  did 
much  during  that  critical  period  to  arrest  the  tide  of  popu- 

*  "Bishop  Raile:"  the  name  is  so  given  in  the  very  distinct  and  consis- 
tent family  tradition  preserved  by  Dr.  Bernheim.  It  is  probable  how- 
ever, that  the  eame  was  Rait,  "James  Rait,"  Bishop  of  Brechin  from 
1742  to  1777- 


38o 

lar  irreligion  and  dissoluteness,  especially  among  the  lower 
orders  of  the  people.  The  Methodists  up  to  this  time  had 
earnestly  repudiated  the  charge  that  they  intended  any 
separation  from  the  Church.  Both  in  England  and  in 
America  Clergymen  of  the  Church  were  their  acknowledged 
leaders;  and  even  though  they  admitted  the  public  preach- 
ing of  unordained  men,  they  made  a  distinction  between 
these  "preachers"  and  "regular"  ministers — these  latter 
being  such  as  had  received  Episcopal  Ordination.  The 
Prayer  Book  was  still  looked  upon  as  the  standard  of  pub- 
lic worship  on  the  Lord's  Day,  though  want  of  books  and 
the  ignorance  of  the  people  might  make  its  general  use 
temporarily  impracticable.  When  in  1784  Wesley  printed 
an  edition  of  the  Prayer  Book  for  the  use  of  the  American 
Methodist  Societies,  and  sent  it  over  to  this  country,  he 
gave  explicit  directions  that  it  should  be  used  for  Lord's 
Day  services  by  all  of  their  preachers,  though  upon  week 
days  they  were  permitted  to  have  extemporized  prayers. 

Of  this  Methodist  Society  Mr.  Miller  became  a  member 
in  Virginia  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  war.  Having 
left  Scotland  at  so  early  an  age,  and  having  been  thereby 
deprived  of  proper  instruction  in  church  principles,  it  is 
probable  that  he  had  not  very  clear  and  intelligent  views 
upon  the  subject,  though  his  convictions  appear  to  have 
been  firm  at  all  times.  He  was  very  strongly  drawn 
towards  the  Methodists  by  the  stress  which  they  laid  upon 
the  importance  of  personal  religious  experience,  and  by 
the  enthusiasm  and  christian  zeal  which  characterized  the 
movement.  He  soon  became  a  local  preacher  among 
them.  In  1785  he  accompanied  Dr.  Coke  from  Virginia 
when  he  came  into  North  Carolina  to  hold  the  first  Con- 
ference ever  held  in  this  State.  It  met  at  Green  Hill's,  in 
Franklin  county,  April  19th,  1785.  Mr.  Miller  in  his  let- 
ter to  Dr.  Hawks  says  that  this  was  in  the  Autumn  of  the 
year  1784.  Mr.  Miller  wrote  from  memory  after  the 
lapse  of  nearly  fifty  years,  and  he  has  made  a  mistake  in 


3»i 


the  time.  Coke  came  to  America  in  November,  1784,  and 
did  not  reach  North  Carolina  nntil  some  months  later.  He 
travelled  for  several  weeks  in  company  with  Coke.  Their 
conversation  was  chiefly  concerning  Coke's  plan  for  organ- 
izing the  Methodist  Society  into  ua  church."  For  the 
first  time  the  Methodist  preachers  had  begun  to  claim 
ministerial  functions.  Coke  at  the  General  Conference 
just  held  in  Baltimore  had  "ordained"  Asbury  to  be  joint 
Superintendent  with  him,  and  together  they  had  proceeded 
to  ordain  a  number  of  their  preachers.  Mr.  Miller  says 
that  he  found  himself  unable  to  give  his  assent  to  this 
scheme,  since  it  had  early  been  impressed  upon  his  mind 
that  to  constitute  a  true  and  authoritative  branch  of  the 
Church,  there  must  be  an  Apostolic  Commission  duly 
transmitted  through  the  Episcopal  order.  Though  Mr. 
Miller  acted  as  a  Methodist  preacher  for  several  years,  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  never  as  such  professed  to  administer 
the  Sacraments.  Very  few  even  of  their  most  extreme 
men  had  up  to  this  time  ventured  upon  this  step;  and  an 
attempt  made  by  some  of  those  in  Virginia  to  administer 
the  Sacraments  and  to  ordain  ministers,  had  produced 
great  dissentions  among  them.  In  the  early  part  of  this 
same  year  in  which  Asbury  was  ordained  by  Coke,  the 
Rev.  Devereux  Jarratt  tells  us  that  at  the  Conference  held 
at  Ellis's,  in  Virginia,  he  was  present,  and  Mr.  Asbury  him- 
self was  in  attendance,  "still  striving  to  render  an  attach- 
ment to  the  Church  yet  more  firm  and  permanent.  For 
this  end  he  had  brought  Mr.  Wesley's  Twelve  Reasons 
against  a  separation  from  the  Church,"  the  first  of  which 
reasons  was  "because  it  would  be  a  contradiction  to  the 
solemn  and  repeated  declarations,  which  we  have  made  in 
all  manner  of  ways. ' ' 

Mr.  Miller  must  have  joined  the  Conference  at  the 
meeting  at  Green  Hill's;  and  he  says  he  preached  upon 
the  Tar  River  Circuit,  which  is  also  in  Franklin  county, 
during  the  year  1785;  but  at  the  end  of  his  year  he  with- 


382 

drew  from  the  Conference.  His  intercourse  with  Coke, 
and  the  rapid  progress  of  events  at  this  period  opened  his 
eyes  to  the  full  significance  of  the  new  position  taken  by 
the  Methodists;  and  he  found  himself  unwilling  to  co- 
operate with  them  in  open  and  avowed  separation  from  the 
Church.  He  testifies  to  the  brotherly  affection  which  had 
marked  his  intercourse  with  the  members  of  the  Confer- 
ence, and  he  says  that  on  their  part  they  declared  publicly 
that  they  had  nothing  against  him,  but  that  he  had  volun- 
tarily withdrawn  on  account  of  his  "disapprobation  of  their 
conduct  and  rules. ' ' 

His  health  having  begun  to  fail  him  in  the  low  country, 
Mr.  Miller  in  1786  settled  in  Lincoln  county  upon  the 
west  bank  of  the  Catawba  river,  and  at  the  request  of  the 
inhabitants,  who  were  very  destitute  of  religious  instruc- 
tion, he  began  to  act  as  lay-reader  and  catechist,  as  has 
already  been  narrated  in  the  account  of  White  Haven. 
His  ministrations  proved  very  acceptable  to  the  people, 
and  he  was  soon  greatly  respected  and  loved  by  all  the 
people  of  the  community,  and  became  the  religious 
instructor  and  trusted  pastor  de  facto,  so  to  say,  of  many  of 
the  inhabitants  who  had  been  attached  to  the  Church  in 
the  countries  from  which  they  had  emigrated. 

Mr.  Miller  now  found  himself  in  a  very  distressing  situ- 
ation. There  were  no  ministers  of  the  Church  within 
hundreds  of  miles  of  him.  He  could  not  baptize  nor  ad- 
minister any  holy  ordinance.  His  people  had  to  resort  to 
the  Luthern  or  the  Presbyterian  ministers  to  have  their 
children  baptized,  or  to  let  them  grow  up  unbaptized.  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  felt  any  disposition  to  seek  a  closer 
union  with  the  Presbyterians,  though  his  relations  with 
them  were  most  cordial.  His  feelings  as  a  Scotch  Episco- 
palian probably  made  him  averse  to  such  a  connection, 
and  he  knew  that  their  doctrines,  as  well  as  their  whole 
method  of  worship,  and  their  religious  traditions,  were  too 
much  opposed  to  his  own,  to  allow  such  an  association  to 


3*3 


be  a  comfortable  one.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  much 
in  the  old  Lutheran  teaching  in  regard  to  the  Sacraments, 
as  well  as  upon  other  points,  which  approximated  to  his 
position  as  a  Churchman;  and  there  was  no  inherited 
autagonism  between  his  own  people  and  their  Lutheran 
neighbors.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  was  aware  that 
many  of  the  Lutheran  Churches  in  Europe  had  retained 
the  Episcopal  form  of  government,  and  that  the  Scandina- 
vian Lutherans  are  generally  believed  to  have  preserved 
the  ancient  Apostolic  Episcopate.  Their  liturgical  wor- 
ship, with  its  familiar  Creed,  Versicles,  Litany,  Collects, 
Epistles  and  Gospels,  and  their  observance  of  the  holy 
seasons  of  the  christian  year, — all  these  must  have  had  no 
little  influence  in  inclining  him  to  a  closer  union  with  his 
Lutheran  neighbors  who  formed  a  large,  and  a  most  esti- 
mable portion  of  the  population  of  Lincoln,  Rowan,  and 
Mecklenburg  counties. 

The  Lutherans  at  this  time  were  in  a  sad  state  of  desti- 
tution themselves  on  account  of  the  lack  of  proper  minis- 
ters. They  had  only  about  half  a  dozen  ordained  ministers 
in  all  this  part  of  the  country  where  the  German  Lutheran 
inhabitants  were  numbered  by  tens  of  thousands.  They 
earnestly  pressed  upon  Mr.  Miller  the  advantages  to  be 
derived  from  a  friendly  union  with  them  in  the  work  of 
the  Gospel.  They  did  not  desire  that  he  should  become  a 
Lutheran,  but  urged  that  he  might  still  remain  an  Episco- 
palian, and  lead  his  people  in  their  old  ways,  and  they 
promised  him  their  hearty  co-operation  in  advancing  the 
cause  of  the  Episcopal  Church  among  the  English  popula- 
tion, in  return  for  his  co-operation  with  them  in  their  work 
among  their  own  German  settlers. 

Mr.  Miller's  congregations  seem  to  have  been  equally 
anxious  to  have  their  minister  clothed  with  the  additional 
respect  and  popular  authority  which  would  come  from  his 
ordination  by  the  Lutheran  ministers,  who  were  men  of 
some  considerable  force  of  character,  as  well  as  of  literary 


3^4 

acquirements.  And  it  no  doubt  occurred  to  his  mind  that 
if  he  should  yield  to  this  double  pressure,  his  people  would 
at  least  be  in  no  worse  case  than  they  were  in  already. 
And  when  we  consider  the  little  prospect  at  that  time  of 
ever  seeing  the  Church  in  the  integrity  of  its  organiza- 
tion and  ministrations  in  this  remote  corner  of  the  world, 
we  can  hardly  wonder  at  his  course.  In  the  letter  to  Dr. 
Hawks  before  referred  to,  he  gives  this  account  of  the 
matter  : 

"Their  congregations  (the  Lutherans)  were  at  that  time 
in  a  very  declining  state,  and  overrun  by  imposters  assu- 
ming the  ministerial  office  without  any  regular  authority 
whatsoever.  To  remedy  these  evils,  they  pressed  me  with 
the  plea  of  necessity,  to  accept  ordination  from  their 
hands,  and  mentioned  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Pilmour,  of  Phil- 
adelphia, had  done  so  in  the  time  of  the  Revolutionary 
war.  There  is  now  and  was  then  a  considerable  number 
of  Presbyterian  clergy  in  this  section,  and  the  most  of  them 
with  whom  I  had  any  intimacy  recommended  the  same 
course,  and  the  congregation  earnestly  requested  me  to 
accept  of  it,  and  (said)  that  they  would  be  perfectly  satis- 
fied with  my  ministrations.  In  short,  as  I  thought  then, 
and  do  think  now,  contrary  to  my  own  better  sentiments, 
I  consented  to  receive  the  ordination  from  them,  not  as  a 
Lutheran  minister,  but  as  an  Episcopalian. ' ' 

Thus,  feeling  that  he  might  be  making  a  mistake,  he 
yielded  to  the  importunity  of  his  friends;  and  in  St.  John's 
Church,  Cabarrus  county,  May  20th,  1794,  at  the  first 
Lutheran  Synodical  meeting  ever  held  in  North  Carolina, 
Robert  Johnston  Miller,  an  avowed  Episcopalian,  was  or- 
dained by  the  Lutheran  Ministerium,  the  first  ordination 
by  Lutherans  in  this  State. 

In  taking  this  extraordinary  step,  Mr.  Miller  was  care- 
ful to  guard  against  any  misunderstanding  of  his  position. 
A  letter  of  orders  was  drawn  up  and  signed  by  all  the  min- 
isters who  took  part  in  this  ordination,  and  was  carefully 


3§5 


preserved  by  Mr.  Miller,  and  by  his  children  after  him, 
until  it  was  destroyed  in  the  burning  of  Mr.  Elisha  P. 
Miller's  house  near  Lenoir  about  the  close  of  the  war. 
Fortunately  Dr.  Bernheim  took  a  copy  of  it  at  the  time  of 
his  visit  before  referred  to,  and  gives  it  in  his  history  of 
the  Lutherans  in  Carolina.     It  is  as  follows  : 

To  all  whom  it  may  concern,  greeting: 

"Whereas,  A  great  number  of  Christian  people  in  Lincoln  County 
"have  formed  themselves  into  a  vSociety  by  the  name  of  White  Haven 
"Church,  and  also  having  formed  a  vestry;  We,  the  subscribers,  having 
"been  urged  by  the  pressing  call  from  the  said  Church  to  ordain  a  minis- 
"ter  for  the  good  of  their  children,  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  ye  Gospel 
"ordidances  among  them,  from  us  the  ministers  of  the  Lutheran  Church 
"in  North  Carolina"  (here  much  of  the  Certificate  is  torn  away  and  lost) 
"according  to  ye  infallible  word  of  God,  administer  ye  sacraments,  and 
"to  have  ye  care"  [sic:  qu — cure?)  "of  souls:  he  always  being  obliged  to 
"obey  ye  rules,  ordinances  and  customs  of  ye  Christian  Society  called  ye 
"Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  America.  Given  under  our  hands  and 
"seals,  North  Carolina,  Cabarrus  County,  May  20th,  1794.  Signed  by 
"Adolphus  Nussmann,  Sr.,  Johan  Gottfriedt  Arendt,  Arnold  Roschen, 
"Christopher  Bernhardt,  and  Charles  Storch." 

Dr.  Bernhiem  says  that  "on  the  reverse  side  of  this 
certificate  the  Lutheran  ministers  gave  their  reasons  why 
they  had  ordained  a  man  who  was  attached  to  the  Episco- 
pal Church  as  a  minister  of  that  denomination,"  but  with 
a  reserve  which  is  characteristic  of  his  dealing'  with  deli- 
cate questions,  he  is  careful  not  to  give  the  least  intima- 
tion of  what  those  reasons  were. 

A  most  interesting  episode  in  Mr.  Miller's  history 
occurred  immediately  after  his  ordination  by  the  Lutherans. 
His  attachment  to  the  Church,  and  his  zeal  and  activity 
in  keeping  up  its  influence  and  its  services,  were  widely 
known,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  taken  for  granted  that 
he  was  a  minister.  At  the  Convention  held  in  Tarbo- 
rough,  November  21st,  1793,  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  Standing  Committee,  and  was  notified  to  attend  the 
meeting  of  the  Convention  called  to  assemble  at  the  same 
place  May  28th,  1794,  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the 


386 

diocesan  organization  and  electing  a  Bishop.  He  must 
have  orone  immediately  from  his  ordination  to  the  Tarbo- 
rough  Convention,  for  he  appeared  and  took  his  seat  the 
first  day  of  the  Session,  May  28th,  and  at  that  time  it 
could  hardly  have  taken  less  than  a  week  to  make  the 
journey  from  Cabarrus  county  to  Tarborough. 

In  this  Convention  Mr.  Milller  took  his  place  as  one  of 
the  Clergy,  reading  the  morning  service  on  the  second 
day.  He  voted  with  the  Clergy  for  a  Bishop,  and  was 
chosen  a  Clerical  member  of  the  Standing  Committee. 
His  name  is  signed  as  one  of  the  Clergy  to  the  testimonial 
of  Mr.  Pettigrew's  election  which  was  transmitted  to  the 
General  Convention,  as  may  be  seen  by  a  reference  to 
Bishop  White's  memoirs  of  the  Church,  as  well  as  to  the 
proceedings  of  the  Convention.  He  says  in  a  letter  to  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Empie,  written  in  181 4  :  "I  was  also  acknowl- 
edged and  received  as  such"  [i.  e.  as  a  minister)  by  the 
Convention  of  the  Episcopal  Clergy  of  this  State,  while  it 
had  any  being."  There  is  nothing  in  the  proceedings  or 
the  records  of  those  Conventions  to  indicate  that  he  had 
not  been  duly  and  regularly  ordained.  But  in  a  list  of  the 
"Names  and  Places  of  the  Clergy,"  among  the  papers  of 
Mr.  Pettigrew,  the  Bishop-elect,  though  his  name  and  his 
parish  of  White  Haven,  head  the  list,  there  is  a  note  added 
at  the  bottom  :  "P.  S.— The  Rev.  Robert  Johnston  Mil- 
ler, White  Haven  Parish,  Lincoln  county,  a  Lutheran 
minister."  In  one  of  Mr.  Pettigrew's  letters  to  Bishop 
White,  he  says  of  him  :  "At  our  Convention  there  was  a 
gentleman  who  had  been  ordained  in  the  Lutheran  Church, 
and  wished  his  ordination  could  be  recognized  in  our 
Church,  and,  indeed,  signified  that  if  it  should  be  consid- 
ered invalid,  he  would  submit  to  a  re-ordination.  He 
appears  to  be  a  decent  man.  He  has  since  our  Convention 
wrote  me  that  he  thinks  the  Society  would  wish  (of  which 
there  are  a  number  of  respectable  clergy)  a  coalition  with 
our  Church." 


387 


It  appears,  everywhere  that  the  subject  is  referred  to, 
that  Mr.  Miller  was  always  extremely  doubtful  of  the  pro- 
priety of  his  ordination,  and  uniformly  excused  his  action 
upon  the  ground  of  an  apparent  necessity.  He  quotes  the 
case  of  Dr.  Pilmour,  of  Philadelphia,  in  his  letter  to  Dr. 
Hawks,  and  also  in  his  letter  to  Dr.  Empie.  Dr.  Joseph 
Pilmour  was  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  Wesley's  lay- 
preachers,  and  after  the  Revolution  he  took  orders,  being 
ordained  Deacon  by  Bishop  Seabury,  November  27th,  1785. 
I  can  find  no  mention  of  his  having  received  Lutheran 
ordination — and  if  he  had  done  so,  it  would  not  be  a  case 
in  point,  as  he  never  professed  to  be  a  minister  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  by  virtue  of  such  ordination. 

From  this  Convention  Mr.  Miller  returned  to  his  parish 
of  White  Haven,  and  entered  upon  his  work  with  renewed 
ardor.  He  had  been  accompanied  to  the  Convention  at 
Tarborough  by  Mr.  Joseph  Perkins,  probably  his  brother- 
in-law,  who  sat  in  the  Convention  as  a  lay-delegate  from 
Lincoln  county,  and  signed  Mr.  Pettigrew's  testimonial 
along  with  the  other  laymen  present.  Mr.  Miller  enter- 
tained great  hopes  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Church  from 
Mr.  Pettigrew's  labors  when  he  should  have  been  conse- 
crated as  Bishop  of  North  Carolina.  He  exerted  himsell 
to  incline  the  few  Lutheran  ministers  to  a  plan  for  the 
union  of  the  two  bodies  into  one,  and  hoped  that  the  in- 
fluence of  Mr.  Pettigrew's  gentleness  and  christian  humility 
might  enable  him  to  bring  about  this  result  to  the  mutual 
advantage  of  all  parties.  These  hopes  are  indicated  in  his 
letter  to  Mr.  Pettigrew  of  May  6th,  1795,  already  given. 
But  unfortunate  circumstances  prevented  Mr.  Pettigrew's 
consecration  to  the  holy  office,  upon  which  so  much  seemed 
to  depend,  and  Mr.  Miller  was  left  powerless  to  do  any- 
thing for  the  effectual  upbuilding  of  the  Church.  It  was 
many  long  years  before  he  again  saw  the  face  of  one  of 
her  ministers. 

It  may  be  well  at  this  point  to  mention  briefly  one  or 


3«8 

two  important  events  in  Mr.  Miller's  domestic  life.  He 
was  married  March  12th,  1787,  to  Mary  Perkins,  daughter 
of  John  Perkins,  Esq.,  of  Lincoln  county,  by  whom  he 
became  the  father  of  ten  children,  seven  sons  and  three 
daughters.  His  father-in-law  gave  him  a  plantation  in 
Burke  county,  in  that  part  of  it  now  the  county  of  Cald- 
well, near  the  site  of  the  present  town  of  Lenoir.  This 
plantation  was  called  "Mary's  Grove,"  probably  after  the 
name  of  his  wife.  To  this  place  he  removed  soon  after  his 
marriage,  but  finding  the  people  of  that  new  country  rough 
and  disagreeable  neighbors,  he  soon  returned  to  Lincoln 
cornty,  living  at  one  time  at  Poplar  Springs,  near  Island 
Ford  on  the  Catawba  river,  and  another  while  at  Willow 
Hill,  near  White  Haven  Church.  In  1806  he  returned  to 
his  place,  Mary's  Grove,  in  Burke  county,  which  continued 
to  be  his  residence  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

As  the  prospect  of  the  revival  seemed  more  and  more 
distant  and  hopeless,  Mr.  Miller  became  the  more  earnestly 
engaged  in  co-operating  with  his  Lutheran  brethren,  and 
being  entirely  alone  as  a  Churchman,  the  work  fell  more 
and  more  completely  into  Lutheran  lines.  He  was  so 
faithful  and  zealous  a  man  that  he  could  not  remain 
inactive,  and  he  soon  became  one  of  the  most  influential 
of  the  members  of  their  body.  He  was  Secretary  of  their 
Synod,  and  a  most  laborious  and  untiring  missionary,  not 
only  in  this  State,  but  in  Virginia,  Tennessee  and  South 
Carolina.  Perhaps  no  man  of  that  period  did  more  for  the 
practical  extension  and  upbuilding  of  the  denomination 
than  he.  As  a  member  of  the  most  important  committees 
he  appears  also  as  exerting  no  small  influence  upon  the 
inner  spirit  of  the  ecclesiastical  administration.  He  tells 
us  that  he  drew  up  the  Constitution  adopted  by  the  Synod 
in  1803  upon  the  lines  of  the  Constitution  which  had  been 
adopted  by  the  General  Convention,  and  that  it  was 
intended  to  form  a  basis  of  union  between  the  Lutherans 
and  Episcopalians,  as  long  as  the  latter  should  remain  in 


389 


their  then  unorganized  condition.  In  a  letter  to  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Empie,  of  Wilmington,  dated  Mary's  Grove,  February 
17th,  1814,  already  quoted,  he  says  :  uIn  the  year  1803, 
through  the  exertions  of  myself  and  four  other  Lutheran 
Clergymen,  a  Convention  was  formed  in  Salisbury,  called 
at  first  the  Convention  of  the  Lutheran  and  Episcopal 
Churches  in  this  State;  but  since  for  some  years  past  it  has 
been  called  simply  the  Synod  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in 
N.  C."  He  says  further,  in  his  letter  to  Dr.  Hawks,  that 
when  he  first  entered  their  ministry  he  reserved  to  himself 
and  his  people  perfect  liberty  uto  return  and  unite  in  full, 
and  without  any  impediment,  with  the  bosom  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  whenever  it  should  please 
God  to  revive  her  in  this  State,1'  and  that  "by  the  spirit, 
terms  and  obligation  of  our  union,  the}'  (the  Lutherans) 
were  bound  to  forward  this  object  to  the  utmost  of  their 
ability."  Mr.  Miller  says  that  this  union  was  effected, 
and  the  Constitution  drawn  up  at  Salisbury.  Dr.  Bern- 
heim  mentions  the  meeting  at  Salisbury,  May  2d,  1803, 
but  says  that  the  Constitution  was  not  adopted  until  the 
second  session  of  the  Synod,  held  at  Lincolnton,  October 
17th,  of  the  same  year.  He  does  not  give  any  account 
whatever  of  the  several  articles  of  the  Constitution,  and  in- 
deed it  looks  as  if  the  whole  question  were  treated  with 
studied  reserve.  In  a  MS.  note  upon  the  margin  of  the 
pamphlet  published  upon  this  subject,  which  I  sent  him  a 
few  years  ago,  with  a  request  for  his  remarks  and  criticisms 
— he  says  :  "There  is  nothing  in  that  Constitution,  which 
is  in  the  German  language,  that  leans  towards  the  Episcopal 
form  of  government. "  As  Mr.  Miller  had  not  said  that 
there  was  anything  in  that  Constitution  which  leaned 
towards  the  Episcopal  form  of  government,  Dr.  Bernheinrs 
note  is  very  little  to  the  purpose.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  whether  that  Constitution  contains  an}'  trace  of  the 
curious  alliance  at  that  time  existing  between  Mr.  Miller, 
with  his  White  Haven  and  other  congregations,  and  the 


39° 

Lutherans.  Mr.  Miller  was  certainly  a  leading  spirit  in 
the  Synod  at  this  time.  Dr.  Bernheim  mentions  that  he 
was  Secretary  of  the  Synod  in  1803  and  1804,  and  such 
extracts  from  their  proceeding  as  he  gives  exhibit  him  as 
one  of  their  most  trusted  and  useful  members. 

Lutheranism  in  North  Carolina,  as  in  other  parts  of  the 
world,  has  confined  its  work  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  to 
those  Germanic  and  Scandinavian  peoples  who  at  the 
period  of  the  Reformation  came  under  the  influence  of  the 
great  movement  begun  by  Luther.  It  has  not  usually 
sought  to  extend  itself  beyond  its  race  lines.  So  in  the 
Carolinas  its  work  was  chiefly  confined  to  the  German  set- 
tlers of  our  middle  and  western  sections.  But  all  through 
the  country  west  of  Greensboro',  and  in  the  neighboring 
parts  of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  South  Carolina,  are  very 
many  of  these  German  settlers  and  their  descendants. 
Among  these  Mr.  Miller's  Lutheran  brethren  exercised 
their  ministry,  and  his  association  with  them  probably 
brought  them  nearer  to  the  English  speaking  inhabitants 
in  interest  and  sympathy.  Being  so  few  in  number,  these 
Lutheran  ministers  could  reach  the  people  of  their  faith 
and  language  only  by  extensive  journeys,  and  Mr.  Miller 
took  part  with  them  in  this  itinerant  preaching.  He  made 
great  circuits  through  the  territory  covering  those  parts  of 
the  four  States  in  which  the  Lutheran  population  were 
seated,  and  was  indefatigable  in  preaching  to  the  people, 
instructing  the  children,  and  organizing  congregations. 

His  especial  charge  during  this  period  continued  to  be 
the  congregations  in  which  the  English  and  Scotch  Epis- 
copalians predominated,  though  with  a  considerable  mix- 
ture of  Lutherans.  Besides  White  Haven,  he  had  two 
other  congregations  in  Lincoln  county.  Smyrna  and  St. 
Peter's,  one  across  the  Catawba  river  in  Iredell  county 
called  St.  Michael's,  composed  partly  of  Lutherans  and 
partly  of  Episcopalians  from  Maryland,  and  one,  I  think, 
near  his  home  in  Burke  county,  called  Trinity.     He  also 


39i 

seems  to  have  ministered  in  Salisbury;  and  in  the  country 
he  was  concerned  in  organizing  the  present  parish  of  Christ 
Church,  Rowan. 

The  first  of  those  extensive  missionary  journeys  which 
have  been  spoken  of,  was  made  in  the  year  1811.  October 
22d,  1810,  the  Lutheran  Synod  had  appointed  him  "travel- 
ling missionary  for  the  Synod,  with  power  to  organize  new 
congregations,  and  to  take  up  collections  for  this  object." 
He  set  out  from  home  June  18th  following,  travelled 
through  Wilkes,  Surry,  and  Stokes  counties,  and  then 
entered  Virginia.  Up  to  this  point  he  found  only  one 
house  of  worship,  a  small  Methodist  Chapel,  and  heard  of 
no  settled  minister  among  the  people,  who  came  in  large 
numbers  to  attend  his  preaching.  He  found  only  three 
families  whose  parents  had  been  Lutherans.  In  Virginia 
he  found  some  Lutheran  ministers  and  congregations.  One 
minister  who  attended  six  congregations,  had  not  been  or- 
dained; "yet  he  ministered  all  the  sacraments.  I  warned 
him  and  his  flock  against  such  conduct."  He  spent  the 
month  of  July  and  the  greater  part  of  August  in  travelling 
and  preaching  in  south-west  Virginia;  thence  going  by 
way  of  Abingdon  into  Sullivan  county,  Tennessee,  where 
he  found  a  number  of  Lutheran  congregations  under  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Smith.  From  Tennessee  he  returned  home, 
having  been  absent  three  months. 

The  4th  of  November  following,  he  set  out  upon  the 
second  part  of  his  journey,  going  by  way  of  Rutherfordton 
into  South  Carolina.  r  He  traversed  the  greater  part  of  the 
upper  settlement  of  this  State  quite  across  to  the  Savan- 
nah river,  found  a  number  of  Lutheran  congregations  and 
ministers,  but  a  low  state  of  religion  among  the  great  mass 
of  the  people.  He  seems  to  have  returned  home  some 
time  about  the  middle  of  December.  uOn  my  whole 
tour,"  he  says  :  "I  have  baptized  this  year  two  adults  and 
sixty  children,  preached  sixty-seven  times,  travelled  three 


392 

thousand  miles  and  received  $70.44  for  my  support,  with- 
out asking  for  a  cent  in  any  way." 

Mr.  Miller  made  another  missionary  tour  of  the  same 
kind  in  18 13,  the  Journal  of  which  he  begins  in  these 
words  :  "Saturday,  May  1st,  1813.  Left  home  in  the  name 
of  the  Triune  God,  on  a  second  missionary  tour."  He 
took  very  much  the  same  course  as  in  June,  1811,  preach- 
ing all  along  the  way.  He  stopped  at  Salem  and  was 
much  pleased  with  the  religious  services  of  the  Moravians, 
and  the  excellence  of  the  female  school.  He  preached  in 
the  Moravian  Church,  and  being-joined  here  by  his  brother 
Lutheran  the  Rev.  Mr.  Scherer,  they  went  on  together 
upon  their  mission  to  Virginia.  Mr.  Miller's  Journal 
gives  an  interesting  account  of  this  expedition,  but  it  is 
too  long  to  insert  here.  He  preached  often  in  English, 
and  Mr.  Scherer  in  German,  to  the  mixed  congregations 
which  gathered  to  hear  them.  He  gives  a  bad  account  of 
the  religious  condition  of  the  country  generally.  At 
Franklin  he  speaks  of  ua  Mr.  Todd,  an  Episcopal  minis- 
ter, who  teaches  a  school,  and  preaches  in  this  place,  but 
has  formed  no  congregation."  June  4th,  Mr.  Scherer 
parted  from  him  to  take  another  part  of  the  circuit,  and  he 
continued  on  alone.  He  mentions  visiting  New  Market, 
Woodstock  (where  was  an  Episcopal  Church  all  in  ruins), 
Strasburg,  Middletown,  Newton,  Winchester;  and  then 
turned  homeward  by  a  somewhat  different  route,  taking  in 
Front  Royal,  Madison  Court  House,  and  Orange  Court 
House.  The  following  entry  is  interesting,  under  date  of 
Wednesday,  July  30th  :  "Rode  ten  miles  to  a  Mr.  Gor- 
don's, a  noted  stand  at  the  cross-roads.  Here  I  saw  a  Mr. 
WTaddel1,  a  sensible  and  pious  man,  and  son  to  a  venerable 
old  man  that  is  now  dead,  who  was  useful  in  his  day,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Waddell,  a  Presbyterian  minister."  Also  the 
following  :  "I  could  not  but  observe  the  general  neglect, 
or  rather  total  disregard,  of  all  religious  institutions,  in  pass- 
ing through  this  quarter:    I  mean  the  counties  of  Orange, 


393 


Albemarle,  and  Nelson.  In  the  first  resides  the  present 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  second  the  late 
President.  Near  to  the  former  is  a  large  brick  church  in 
a  state  of  ruin.  *  *  *  *  In  my  view  an  enemy  to 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  worst  enemy  of  his  coun- 
try, whatever  his  profession  may  be;  and  the  higher  he  is 
in  station  the  more  fatal  his  influence."  Speaking  of  New 
Glasgow,  he  says  :  "There  is  also,  as  I  understood,  a 
Rev.  Mr.  Crawford,  an  Episcopalian,  near;  but  preaches 
very  little."  Thence  he  went  on  to  Lynchburg,  and  then 
he  pushed  on  for  North  Carolina,  crossing  the  Yadkin  at 
the  Shallow  Ford,  before  sunrise  Sunday,  July  nth,  and 
going  to  the  house  of  his  brother-in-law,  Thomas  Snoddy, 
Esq.,  in  Iredell  county.  He  adds  :  "This  day  I  finished 
my  55th  year  in  this  world. 

Again  another  fleeting'  year 

( )f  my  short  life  is  past; 
I  cannot  long  continue  here, 

And  this  may  be  my  last. 

Much  of  my  dubious  life  is  gone, 

Nor  will  return  again; 
And  swift  my  passing  moments  run. 

The  few  that  yet  remain. 

O  !  guide  me  down  the  steep  of  age, 

And  keep  my  passions  cool  ; 
Teach  me  to  scan  the  sacred  page, 

And  practice  every  rule. 

My  flying  years  time  urges  on, 

What's  human  must  decay  ; 
My  friends,  my  young  companions  gone, 

Can  I  expect  to  stay  ?  " 

Monday,  July  12th  :  "Rode  home,  about  36  miles,  where, 
through  the  Divine  mercy,  I  found  my  family  in  health 
and  peace — Glory  be  to  God  for  this,  and  all  His  un- 
merited goodness  to  me,  a  poor  sinful  creature.  On  this 
tour  I  have  rode  one  thousand  and  eighty-two  miles;  spent 
two  months  and  twelve  days;  paid,  in  expenses,  twenty- 


394 

three  dollars  and  sixty-nine  cents,  and  received  from  the 
people  amongst  whom  I  labored,  seventy  dollars;  have 
preached  forty-eight  sermons;  helped  to  administer  the  sac- 
rament of  the  holy  supper,  and  baptized  twenty-seven 
children."  (He  had  also  organized  quite  a  number  of  new 
congregations  in  Virginia.)  "I  have  to  observe  as  to  the 
twelve  comities  on  this  side  of  the  Bine  Ridge,  in  Vir- 
ginia, through  which  I  passed,  that  is,  Culpepper,  Madi- 
son, Orange,  Albemarle,  Nelson,  Amherst,  Campbell,  Bed- 
ford, Franklin,  Henry,  Patrick,  and  Pittsylvania,  that 
their  religions  situation  is  by  no  means  either  promising 
or  favorable."  He  goes  on  to  specify  that  the  people  are 
not  only  irreligious  and  immoral,  but  that  no  means  are 
taken  for  bringing  up  the  children  in  religious  nurture. 
Most  of  the  few  preachers  among  them  were  Baptists  or 
Methodists,  and  they  did  not  pay  much  attention  to  the 
instruction  of  the  young. 

It  appears  from  the  above  journal  that  Mr.  Miller  fol- 
lowed the  usual  custom  of  Lutherans  and  confirmed  the 
children  and  young  persons  preparatory  to  admitting  them 
to  the  Lord's  Supper.  He  not  only  practiced  this  among 
the  Lutherans,  but  also  among  his  little  congregations  of 
Church  people.  There  is  an  old  record  in  Christ  Church, 
Rowan  county,  showing  that  he  administered  Confirma- 
tion in  that  Church  a  number  of  times,  once  to  as  many  as 
twenty-four  persons  in  a  single  class.  It  is  probable  that, 
being  cut  off  from  the  ministrations  of  the  Church,  he 
adopted  the  whole  Lutheran  system  as  he  found  it  prac- 
ticed by  his  brother  ministers. 

In  November,  1813,  Mr.  Miller  received  a  letter  from 
the  Rev.  Adam  Empie,  Rector  of  St.  James'  Church, 
Wilmington,  inquiring  about  the  Church  in  the  upper 
part  of  the  State,  and  also  asking  information  in  regard  to 
Mr.  Miller's  ecclesiastical  status.  Mr.  Miller's  reply  is 
dated  "Mary's Grove,  Burke  county,  February  17th,  1814." 
He  gives  in  brief  the  account  of  his  ordination  already 


395 


detailed  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  asserts  that  he  has 
always  considered  himself  an  Episcopalian.  He  declares 
that  "nothing  this  side  the  glory  of  heaven1'  would  give 
him  more  satisfaction  than  the  revival  of  Episcopacy  in  his 
beloved  country.  In  speaking  of  his  missionary  tours  he 
says  that  he  "found  many  very  respectable  families  still 
strongly  attached  to  her  communion,  although  they  had 
but  little  prospect  of  ever  enjoying  it,  as  there  was  but 
one  or  two  Episcopal  Clergy  in  all  that  extent  through 
which  I  passed,  and  they  appeared  to  be  sleeping  upon 
their  oars."  "As  to  the  number  of  Episcopal  congrega- 
tions in  this  quarter  there  are  but  three  that  have  had  any 
regular  form."  These  three  were  probably  White  Haven, 
St.  Peter's  and  Smyrna,  in  Lincoln  county.  He  speaks 
of  one  called  "Trinity,"  of  which  I  remember  no  other 
mention.  He  had  a  congregation  a  few  miles  from  the 
present  town  of  Lenoir  on  the  road  to  Hickory,  but  that 
was  St.  Andrew's.  He  says  that  many  Church  people 
were  scattered  about  through  the  country  mingled  with 
the  Presbyterians;  and  he  still  holds  out  the  idea  that  if 
the  Church  could  be  revived  in  North  Carolina  the  whole 
body  of  Lutherans  would  unite  with  it.  This  letter  shows 
that  during  the  interval  between  Mr.  Miller's  Lutheran 
ordination  and  the  revival  of  the  Church  his  principles  had 
not  changed.  Nothing  practical  came  of  this  correspon- 
dence. * 


*  A  number  of  letters  passed  between  Parson  Miller  and  Dr.  Empie 
between  1813  and  1825.  Those  of  the  latter  are  still  preserved  by  the 
descendants  of  Parson  Miller,  but  only  one  of  Mr.  Miller's  is  known  to 
be  in  existence— that  dated  February  17th,  18 14,  quoted  above.  If  Dr. 
Empie's  papers  have  been  preserved  it  is  likely  that  Parson  Miller's  let- 
ters to  him  would  prove  to  be  of  very  great  interest,  for  it  appears  from 
Dr.  Empie's  letters  that  Parson  Miller  devoted  several  of  his  to  an  ac- 
count of  the  condition  of  the  Church  in  North  Carolina  during  the  days 
succeeding  the  Revolution.  In  his  letter  to  Dr.  Hawks  he  goes  over  the 
same  ground,  but  these  letters  written  so  much  earlier  would  probably  be 
more  interesting  and  valuable. 


39^ 

In  1815  Mr.  Miller  organized  a  new  congregation  in  Ire- 
dell county,  called  "New  Pearth,11  which  after  a  few  years 
came  to  be  called  St.  Michael's.  The  land  was  donated 
by  Daniel  Walcher,  and  was  given  to  Lutherans  and  Epis- 
copalians jointly  for  use  in  common.  The  congregation 
was  composed  of  descendants  of  the  German  families  of 
Rowan  and  Cabarrus,  together  with  a  number  of  Episco- 
palians from  Maryland,  part  of  the  same  colony  which  had 
come  into  RowTan  as  early  as  1793  or  4.  This  congrega- 
tion has  been  mentioned  before,  but  it  was  not  organized 
until  1815. 

The  year  181 7  was  almost  as  much  of  an  epoch  to  the 
Lutherans  of  North  Carolina,  as  it  was  to  the  Churchmen, 
though  an  epoch  of  a  very  different  character.  In  the 
Synod  which  met  in  October,  181 7,  the  latitudinarians 
carried  the  day  in  regard  to  the  licensing  of  unordained 
men  to  administer  the  sacraments.  This,  with  other 
things,  apparently  carried  through  the  influence  of  Gotlieb 
Shober,  the  Moravian,  laid  the  foundation  of  the  schism, 
in  which  the  reactionary  party  under  the  leadership  of 
Henckel,  organized  the  Tennessee  Synod,  as  has  been 
already  mentioned.  Mr.  Miller  was  the  only  member 
present  in  the  Synod  who  opposed  this  action  to  the  very 
end;  and  he  seems  to  have  taken  part  in  only  one  subse- 
quent meeting,  that  of  18 19.  The  organization  of  the 
Diocese  of  North  Carolina  in  18 17,  and  the  visitation  oi 
Bishop  Moore  in  1819,  and  again  in  1820,  encouraged  him 
to  hope  that  the  long  desired  revival  of  Episcopacy  in 
North  Carolina  had  come.  In  1821  the  Convention  of  the 
Diocese  met  in  Raleigh,  April  28th.  Mr.  Miller  attended 
with  his  letter  of  Lutheran  Orders.  It  is  said  that  when 
Bishcp  Moore  read  it,  he  said  to  Mr.  Miller  :  "Why,  you 
belong  to  us."  We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Miller  had  all 
along  looked  upon  his  Lutheran  ordination  as  an  expedient 
under  the  necessities  of  his  situation;  and  that  within  a 
week  of  that  ordination  he  had  declared  to  Mr.  Pettigrew 


397 


his  readiness  to  be  re-ordained.  We  are  therefore  not  sur- 
prised to  find  that  he  availed  himself  of  this  opportunity 
to  receive  the  ministerial  commission  by  the  imposition 
of  Apostolic  hands:  and  that  Bishop  Moore,  in  the  case  of 
a  man  so  approved  by  a  long  course  of  faithful  and  fruitful 
labors,  passed  by  all  ordinary  preliminaries,  and  ordered 
Robert  Johnston  Miller,  Deacon  May  ist,  in  the  fore-noon, 
and  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day  ordained  him  to  the 
Priesthood.  Both  services  took  place  in  the  Methodist 
Church  at  Raleigh. 

Of  Mr.  Miller's  history  after  this  we  must  speak  but 
briefly.  Having  thus  in  the  end  of  his  life,  for  he  was  now 
about  sixty-three  years  old,  received  Episcopal  ordination 
he  earnestly  desired  to  build  up  the  Church  in  those 
regions  where  he  had  labored  so  long  as  a  Lutheran  min- 
ister. He  still  hoped  to  bring  the  Lutherans  into  some 
kind  of  union  with  the  Church:  his  efforts  in  this  direc- 
tion will  be  narrated  in  a  separate  section  to  follow.  His 
labors  as  a  pastor  among  his  people  after  this  time  were 
not  so  successful  as  he  could  have  wished;  and  he  did  not 
feel  that  he  enjoyed  that  sympathy  and  co-operation  from 
his  Lutheran  brethren,  which  by  the  terms  no  less  than 
the  spirit  of  his  original  agreement  and  union  with  them, 
he  had  a  right  to  expect.  For  nearly  thirty  years  he  had 
given  himself  unreservedly  to  their  work  no  less  than  to 
his  own.  Indeed  his  labors  for  them  were  greater  than  for 
his  own  communion.  In  all  of  his  congregations  he  min- 
istered as  a  Lutheran  to  the  Lutheran  members,  and  out- 
side the  few  congregations  in  Lincoln  and  Rowan,  in 
which  his  labors,  may  be  said  to  have  been  equally  divided 
between  the  two,  the  whole  of  his  ministry  was  to  build 
up  and  to  extend  Lutheranism.  The  question  of  the  reason- 
ableness of  such  a  mixed  work  is  not  now  under  considera- 
tion. The  fact  of  his  very  great  services  during  all  the 
best  years  of  his  life  to  the  cause  of  Lutheranism  in  the 
two  Carolinas,  Virginia,  and  Tennessee,  is  not  disputed. 


393 

Dr.  Bernheim  says  of  him  :  "He  organized  several"  (he 
might  have  said  many)  "Churches  in  our  midst,  and  accom- 
plished much  good  as  an  active  energetic  minister,  and 
our  Church  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  his  memory  which 
cannot  easily  be  cancelled  or  forgotten."  Yet  it  does  not 
appear  that  in  his  efforts  to  build  up  the  Church  and  to 
recover  for  it  those  individuals  and  congregations  which 
under  his  pastoral  care  had  been  associated  with  the 
Lutherans,  he  received  any  encouragement  01  assistance 
whatever.  The  lesson  which  he  draws  from  his  experience 
in  this  matter  is  that  it  is  vain,  if  not  absurd,  to  suppose 
"that  the  successful  attempt  of  amalgamating  the  different 
sects,  creeds,  order  and  worship  of  all  those  who  call  them- 
selves Christians,  will,  or  can,  produce  that  unity  of  faith 
and  practice  enjoined  by  the  pure  Word  of  God."  "And 
it  furnishes  us  with  an  experimental  demonstration,  how 
impossible  it  is  to  attempt,  in  any  degree,  a  compromise 
with  error,  schism,  or  heresy,  without  injury  to  the 
truth."  He  seems  to  have  found  it  impossible  to  recover 
for  the  Church  those  congregations  which  in  consequence 
of  his  action  had  so  long  been  identified  with  Lutheranism : 
and  he  sadly  reflects  that  "neither  sorrow  nor  lamentation 
will  recover  the  ground  that  has  been  lost  to  the  Episco- 
pal cause  in  this  section  of  the  country  in  consequence  of 
that  fatal  error  of  mine." 

After  his  return  from  the  Convention  at  Raleigh,  Air. 
Miller  renewed  the  energy  and  enterprise  of  his  youth. 
White  Haven,  and  Smyrna,  in  Lincoln  county  were  ad- 
mitted into  the  Convention  in  1822:  Christ  Church,  Rowan, 
had  been  admitted  in  182 1:  St.  Peter's  Lincoln,  and  St. 
Andrew's,  Burke  county,  were  admitted  in  1823;  as  a^so 
St.  Peter's  Church,  Lexington.  All  these  were  under  Mr. 
Miller's  charge.  The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Diocese 
assigned  to  him  as  assistants  in  this  extensive  field  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Wright,  ordained  Deacon  in  1820,  and  the 
Rev.  Robert  Davis,  of  Orange,  ordained  Deacan  in  1821, 


399 


though  most  of  Mr.  Wright's  time  was  given  to  Wades- 
boro'.  St.  Luke's  Church,  Salisbury,  was  also  under  the 
same  pastoral  charge.  In  1823  Mr.  Davis  left  the  Dio- 
cese, and  Mr.  Wright  confined  himself  to  his  work  in 
Wadesboro',  with  an  occasional  visit  to  St.  Luke's  and 
Christ  Church,  for  the  purpose  of  administering  the  Holy 
Communion.  Mr.  Miller,  for  some  years,  was  the  only 
pastor  for  the  whole  section  from  Davidson  county  to 
Burke.  In  1824,-  ^e  reports  that  most  of  the  Lutheran 
members  of  St.  Michael's  in  Iredell  county,  have  with- 
drawn, and  after  1825  tne  name  of  St.  Michael's  disap- 
pears from  the  Journals  of  the  Convention.  The  portion 
of  the  congregation  remaining  under  his  care  was  chiefly 
composed  of  members  of  the  Mills  family  and  their  con- 
nections— Mr.  Charles  Mills,  being  the  head  of  the  family 
at  that  time.  For  some  years  the  congregation  was  re- 
ported to  the  Convention  in  the  name  of  that  family — 
"MilVs,  Iredell  County."  It  is  now  the  parish  of  St. 
James. 

The  little  that  remains  to  be  told  of  Mr.  Miller's  minis- 
terial labors  can  be  gathered  from  the  Journals  of  our  Con- 
vention, and  therefore  need  not  to  be  narrated  here.  St. 
Luke's,  Salisbury,  Christ  Church,  Rowan,  St.  James', 
Iredell,  upon  our  present  parochial  list,  may  fairly  be 
claimed  as  parishes  which  he  founded.  St.  Andrew's, 
Burke,  was  the  beginning  of  the  present  parish  of  St. 
James,  Lenoir.  He  also  preached  in  a  log  church  on 
John's  river,  which  may  have  been  the  Trinity,  referred  to 
on  a  former  page,  but  there  was  no  regular  congregation 
there.  White  Haven,  has  long  ago  crumbled  to  decay,  of 
vSt.  Peter's  and  Smyrna,  not  even  the  location  is  known. 

In  1827,  Mr.  Miller  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  his  wife 
after  a  union  of  nearly  fifty  years.  His  large  family  all 
occupied  positions  of  credit  in  the  community.  Many 
worthy  descendants  of  his  still  represent  the  Church  of 
his  affections  in  the  country  where  most  of  his  mature 


4oo 

years  were  spent.  One  of  his  daughters  married  the  Rev. 
Godfrey  Dreher,  a  Lutheran  minister  of  Lexington  district, 
Sorth  Carolina.  Others  married  into  the  most  distinguished 
and  respectable  families  of  Burke  county.  The  names 
Miller,  Scott,  Kent,  and  others,  are  borne  by  his  descen- 
dants at  the  present  day. 

Mr.  Miller  attended  no  Convention  after  that  of  1829.  He 
is  mentioned  from  time  to  time  in  the  addresses  of  Bishop 
Ravenscroft  and  Bishop  Ives,  and  always  with  the  greatest 
affection  and  respect.  His  bodily  strength  gradually  de- 
cayed with  increasing  years  until  May  13th,  1834,  when  he 
fell  asleep  in  the  Lord,  after  an  earthly  pilgrimage  of  sev- 
enty-five years,  ten  months  and  two  days.  His  mortal 
remains  were  interred  in  the  family  grave-yard  at  "Marx  's 
Grove,"  near  the  present  town  of  Lenoir,  which  continued 
for  many  years  afterwards  to  be  the  residence  of  his  son 
Elisha  P.  Miller.  The  funeral  service  was  read  and  an 
appropriate  sermon  preached  by  the  Rev.  John  Morgan, 
Rector  of  St.  Luke's  Church,  Salisbury,  and  Christ  Church, 
Rowan.  In  his  address  to  the  Convention  of  1835,  Bishop 
[ves  says  :  kkIn  recording  the  changes  which,  during  the 
past  year,  have  occured  among  us,  I  notice  with  unfeigned 
sorrow  the  death  of  the  Reverend  Robert  J.  Miller,  of 
Burke  county,  a  clergyman  of  whom  we  may  emphatically 
say,  for  him  to  live  zvas  Christ;  and  to  die  is  gain 

in. 

FRATERNAL  RELATIONS. 
The  Diocesan  Convention  and  the  Lutheran  Synod. 

[t  is  a  fact  not  generally  remembered  that  delegations 
from  the  Lutheran  Synod  once  sat  in  the  Conventions  of 
the  Diocese  of  North  Carolina,  and  that  our  delegates  also 
had  honorary  places  in  the  Lutheran  Synod.  The  names 
of  the  Rev.   Gottlieb  Shober,  the  Rev.  Daniel  Scherer, 


40i 


Gen.  Paul  Barringer,  and  Col.  Henry  Ratz,  are  found  in 
the  list  of  the  members  of  the  Convention  of  1823;  ano< 
during  this  period  the  minutes  of  the  Synod  record  the 
presence  of  the  Rev.  Adam  Empie,  the  Rev.  G.  T.  Bedell, 
and  the  Hon.  Duncan  Cameron,  of  our  Convention. 

These  mutual  courtesies  were  due  directly  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Rev.  Robert  Johnston  Miller,  and  they  consti- 
tute a  pleasing  after-piece  to  the  curious  and  anomalous 
position  occupied  by  Mr.  Miller  and  the  congregations  of 
Episcopalians  under  his  charge  during  their  twenty-seven 
years  connection  with  the  Lutheran  Synod.  A  brief  con- 
sideration of  the  relations  formerly  existing  between  the 
Lutherans  and  the  Churchmen  of  North  Carolina  will  not 
unfitly  conclude  this  imperfect  account  of  old  White 
Haven  Chnrch  and  its  Pastor. 

Concerning  this  episode  in  our  diocesan  history,  there  is 
very  little  to  be  recorded,  and  that  little  is  mostly  con- 
tained in  the  Journals  of  our  Conventions.  Complete  sets 
of  these  are  now  become  so  rare  that  few  persons  are 
acquainted  with  their  contents,  which  is  the  excuse  offered 
far  transcribing  a  few  of  these  particulars  of  our  recorded 
history. 

Rut  although  the  story  of  the  interchange  of  these  formal 
greetings  between  the  two  ecclesiastical  bodies  is  but  brief, 
and  concerning  them  there  is  nothing  new  to  relate,  yet 
there  is  this  to  be  observed,  which  has  hitherto  escaped 
attention — that  the  friendship  between  the  Lutherans  and 
the  Churchmen  of  North  Carolina  did  not  result  from  the 
action  or  the  influence  of  Mr.  Miller.  On  the  contrary  it 
is  morally  certain  that  Mr.  Miller's  action  in  this  connec- 
tion was  to  a  very  great  extent  influenced  by  the  state  of 
feeling  between  these  two  bodies,  the  mutual  sympathy 
and  friendship  which  had  begun  long  before  Mr.  Miller 
came  into  this  part  of  the  count}-.  He  only  perpetuated 
and  rendered  more  close  and  intimate  a  friendly  alliance 
which  he  found  existing  in  1786. 


4-02 

It  has  already  been  remarked  that  there  was  much  in 
the  doctrines  and  worship  of  the  old  Lutherans  to  attract 
the  favorable  regard  of  Churchmen.  Indeed,  it  is  well 
known  that  Luther  and  Melancthon,  and  other  Protestant 
divines,  exercised  no  small  influence  upon  the  course  and 
character  of  the  English  Reformation.  The  further  fact 
that  the  Hanoverian  Kings  of  England  were  originally 
Lutherans,  and  so  far  as  they  displayed  any  religious  feel- 
ing at  all,  remained  Lutherans,  until  the  accession  of 
George  III,  must  have  tended  to  promote  a  friendly  feeling 
between  members  of  the  two  communions  in  the  Colonies. 
In  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  overtures  were  made  by  the 
King  of  Prussia  looking  to  the  adoption  by  the  Lutherans 
of  Prussia  of  the  Articles  and  Liturgy  of  the  English 
Church;  and  the  proposition  that  the  English  Bishops 
should  consecrate  Bishops  for  Prussia,  and  so  convey  to 
that  Kingdom  the  Apostolic  succession,  was  so  favorably 
received  that  the  most  sanguine  hopes  were  entertained  of 
the  result.  But  for  delays  and  complications  caused  by 
the  desire  to  included  Hanover  in  this  arrangement,  it  seems 
more  than  likely  that  these  two  great  barriers  against 
Roman  tyranny,  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Lutherans 
of  Germany,  might  have  been  happily  united.  As  further 
illustrating  the  friendly  relations  which  have  thus  for  cen- 
turies been  preserved,  it  may  be  mentioned  in  passing  that 
for  a  number  of  years  during  this  present  century,  the 
British  and  Prussian  governments  maintained  a  Bishop  at 
Jerusalem,  selected  alternately  from  England  and  Germany, 
and  consecrated  by  English  Bishops. 

Considering  all  these  things,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Lutherans  and  Churchmen,  finding  themselves  in  a  con- 
dition of  common  poverty  and  spiritual  destitution  in  the 
wilds  of  the  new  world,  should  have  drawn  close  together 
in  Christian  feeling;  and  we  are  prepared  to  find  evidences 
of  this  kindly  regard  among  the  German  and  English  set- 
tlers upon  the  banks  of  the  Yadkin  and  the  Catawba. 


403 

The  presence  of  a  vigorous  and  aggressive  population  of 
Scotch-Irish  Calvinists  would  also  tend  to  lead  them  into 
this  friendly  alliance. 

The  records  of  those  early  days  are  too  meager  to  afford 
us  detailed  accounts  of  .such  matters  as  these,  but  the 
evidence,  though  scanty,  is  conclusive.  In  Dr.  Rumple' s 
account  of  the  establishment  of  the  "oldest  Lutheran  con- 
gregation organized  in  the  Province  of  North  Carolina," 
given  in  his  History  of  Rowan  county,  he  says  :  "In  the 
year  1768,  John  Lewis  Beard,  a  wealthy  citizen  of  Salis- 
bury, and  a  member  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  was  bereaved 
by  the  death  of  a  daughter,  and  her  body  was  interred  in  a 
lot  of  ground  owned  by  her  father.  To  prevent  her  re- 
mains from  being  disturbed  by  the  inarch  of  civilization, 
Mr.  Beard  executed  a  deed  for  the  lot,  containing  144 
square  poles,  to  a  body  of  trustees  of  the  Evangelical 
Lutheran  congregation  of  the  Township  of  Salisbury, 
allowing  ministers  of  the  High  {sic)  Church  of  England  to 
occupy  it,  when  not  used  by  the  Lutherans. ' '  The  build- 
ing afterwards  erected  upon  this  lot  was  used  in  accordance 
with  the  provisions  of  this  deed  down  to  the  year  1825. 
This  is  the  first  evidence  of  the  friendship  between  Luth- 
erans and  Churchmen  in  this  section. 

The  Rev.  Thodorus  Swaim  Drage,  having  been  1 'licensed 
for  the  Plantations"  by  the  Bishop  of  Loudon,  May  29th, 
1769,  was  by  Gov.  Try  on  recommended  to  the  Vestry  of 
St.  Luke's  Parish,  Rowan  count}-,  by  letter  dated  Novem- 
ber 12th  of  the  same  year.  July  9th,  1770,  the  Governor 
sent  him  a  letter  of  induction.  He  seems  to  have  gone  to 
Salisbury  at  the  end  of  1769,  or  the  beginning  of  1770, 
and  to  have  entered  zealously  upon  the  task  of  putting 
into  effect  the  Colonial  statute  for  the  organization  of  the 
parish  and  the  support  of  the  Church.  In  this  he  was 
strenuously  opposed  by  the  Presbyterians,  and  a  long  strug- 
gled followed,  from  which  Mr.  Drage  seems  to  have  retired 
after  a  year  or  two,  despairing  of  success.    This  is  alluded 


404 

to  merely  to  show,  in  connection  with  this  bitter  struggle 
with  the  Presbyterians,  the  fact  that  the  kindliest  feeling 
existed  between  the  Churchmen  and  the  Lutherans  during 
the  whole  of  this  exciting  period.  Mr.  Drage  says  the  two 
lived  together  in  much  harmony:  a  second  example  of  the 
disposition  of  Lutherans  toward  Churchmen. 

Dr.  Bernhehn  in  his  History  says  that  "in  the  year  1772, 
Christopher  Rintelmann,  from  Organ  Church,  in  Rowan 
county,  and  Christopher  Layrle,  from  St.  John's  Church, 
in  Mecklenburg  count}',  were  sent  as  a  delegation  to 
Europe,  *  *  *  for  a  supply  of  ministers  and  school- 
teachers, for  the  various  Lutheran  congregations,  then  or- 
ganized in  North  Carolina,"  and  adds  that  "these  com- 
missioners travelled  first  to  London." '  In  this  Dr.  Bern- 
heim  mistakes  the  date  and  overstates  the  facts.  Rintel- 
mann and  Layrle  went  upon  their  mission  to  Europe  early 
in  the  year  177 1,  and  they  did  not  go  "for  a  supply  of 
ministers  and  school-teachers  for  the  various  Lutheran 
congregations  then  organized  in  North  Carolina;1'  nor 
were  they,  the  one  from  the  Organ  Church,  and  the  other 
from  St.  John's.  It  appears  from  their  own  record  book, 
lately  discovered  in  Salisbury  by  the  Rev.  Francis  J.  Mur- 
doch, and  by  him  presented  to  St.  Luke's  Church,  Salis- 
bury, that  these  men  represented  the  only  Lutheran  con- 
gregation at  that  time  organized  in  this  section,  and  they 
went  to  obtain  help  to  support  a  minister  and  school- 
teacher for  that  congregation.  No  name  is  given  to  this 
organization,  but  it  is  said  to  be  composed  of  "sixty  Ger- 
man Lutheran  Protestant  families,"  forming  a  settlement 
on  Second  Creek,  in  Rowan  county.  The}-  were  sent  ex- 
pressly to  England  and  made  their  first  appeal  for  assist- 
ance to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  and 
the  Bishops  of  the  English  Church.  Before  setting  out 
from  home,  Mr.  Drage  gave  them  a  letter  of  commendation 
to  Gov.  Tryon,  and  one  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Society. 
They  say  that  Gov.   Tryon   "according  to  his  known 


4°5 

humanity  lias  countenanced  their  petition  under  the  great 
seal  of  the  Province,  and  referred  the  case  to  the  Honora- 
ble Society,  *  *  *  which  Society  has  likewise  piously 
countenanced  under  their  seal  this  undertaking."  Gov. 
Tryon,  his  sister,  the  Honorable  Miss  Tryon,  the  Arch- 
Bishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  headed  the  sub- 
scription for  this  pious  object,  and  at  the  request  of  the 
commissioners,  the  Treasurer  of  the  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel,  consented  to  act  as  Treasurer  of  the 
fund.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Drage  speaks  of  these  German  Lutherans  as  his  parish- 
ioners, and  everything  shows  that  there  was  the  kindest 
and  most  cordial  relations  existing  between  them.  The 
fact  that  so  uncompromising  a  champion  of  the  Church 
should  have  spoken  and  acted  in  this  way  in  regard  to  this 
effort  of  the  Lutherans  to  obtain  a  minister  and  teacher  for 
their  struggling  congregation  puts  it  beyond  all  doubt  that 
a  warm  and  earnest  feeling  of  mutual  sympathy  and  affec- 
tion prevailed  at  this  time.  This  is  also  confirmed  In- 
other  parts  of  Mr.  Drage' s  correspondence.  These  docu- 
ments have  never  been  in  print,  and  therefore  the  light 
which  they  throw  upon  the  relations  of  the  Lutherans  with 
the  Churchman  of  Rowan  comes  in  to  supplement  the  evi- 
dence of  the  same  thing  from  other  sources. 

When  Mr.  Miller  settled  on  the  Catawba  river  in  1786, 
the  onlv  Lutheran  ministers  in  the  whole  of  the  (Term an 
settlement  were  the  Rev.  A.  Nussman,  and  the  Rev.  J.  G. 
Arndt,  who  had  been  sent  from  Germany  in  1773  in  re- 
sponse to  the  appeal  ot  the  commissioners  before  men- 
tioned. Mr.  Arndt  had  come  out  as  a  school-teacher,  but 
had  since  become  a  minister.  These  men  owed  their  posi- 
tion and  power  for  usefulness  among  their  people,  very 
largely  to  the  assistance  rendered  by  Churchmen  in  the 
first  effort  to  put  tne  Lutherans  of  Rowan  upon  their  feet. 
It  was  therefore  but  natural  that  they  should  receive  Mr. 


406 


Miller  cordially,  and  that  they  should  desire,  and  that  he 
should  reciprocate  the  desire,  to  preserve  and  to  perpetuate 
this  brotherly  feeling  among  their  people.  The  steps  by 
which  they  were  led  to  attempt  a  closer  and  more  organic 
union  have  already  been  narrated. 

With  the  first  rise  of  Church  life  in  North  Carolina,  the 
idea  of  organic  union  was  found  to  be  impracticable.  It 
had  so  far  been  all  give  by  the  Churchmen,  and  all  take 
by  the  Lutherans.  Naturally  the  stronger  body  did  not 
relish  the  idea  of  reversing  the  process.  But  there  were 
deeper  causes  than  any  mere  selfishness  or  sectarian  feel- 
ing, which  stood  in  the  way  of  union  between  the  two 
bodies. 

Lutheranism,  during  Mr.  Miller's  connection  with  the 
Synod,  had  been  gradually  drifting  away  from  its  old 
standard  of  doctrine  and  of  worship,  and  becoming  more  and 
more  assimilated  to  the  various  bodies  of  English  Dissen- 
ters by  which  it  was  surrounded.  This  is  no  place  for  an 
examination  of  the  question,  but  it  is  a  fact  disclosed  by 
their  own  records  that  in  182 1  when  Mr.  Miller  was  or- 
dained by  Bishop  Moore,  the  Lutherans  had  almost  wholly 
abandoned  those  devotional  practices  and  those  sacramen- 
tal doctrines,  which  had  both  in  Europe  and  America  been 
such  a  bond  of  union  between  them  and  us.  *  But  there 
remained  a  sentiment  springing  from  the  memory  of  past 
association,  and  Mr.  Miller  sought  anxiously  to  perpetuate 
the  fraternal  relations  in  which  he  had  lived  with  his 
Lutheran  brethren  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

His  first  appearance  in  our  Convention  was  as  a  delegate 
from  the  Lutheran  Synod.  On  page  4,  Journal  of  1821,  is  the 
following  entry  :     "It  being  ascertained  that  the  Rev.  Rob- 


*  In  a  MS.  note  to  a  copy  of  a  former  pamphlet  containing  this  state- 
ment which  I  sent  to  Dr.  Bernheim.  he  says  :  "All  this,  tho'  true  for 
that  time,  is  greatly  changed  now.  The  Lutherans  are  rapidly  returning 
to  the  true  and  original  faith  as  set  forth  in  the  unaltered  Augsburg  Con- 
fession, and  other  symbolical  writings  of  the  16th  century." 


4o7 


ERT  Johnson  Miller,  of  Burke  county,  has  come  to  this 
Convention  in  the  capacity  of  a  delegate  from  the  German 
and  English  Lutheran  Synod  of  North  Carolina,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  effecting  as  far  as  practicable,  intercourse 
and  union  between  the  Episcopalians  and  some  of  the 
Lutheran  congregations  : 

"Resolved,  That  the  Rev.  Mr.  Miller  be  cordially  re- 
ceived in  the  above  capacity  and  admitted  to  a  seat  in  this 
Convention. " 

Mr.  Miller  being  thus  admitted  presented  a  formal  com- 
munication from  the  Synod,  and  upon  the  recommenda- 
tion of  the  committee  upon  the  state  of  the  church,  the 
Revs.  Adam  Empie  and  G.  T.  Bedell  and  the  Hon.  Dun- 
can Cameron  were  appointed  a  committee  to  attend  the 
Lutheran  Synod,  and  "to  consider  of  and  agree  upon  such 
terms  of  union,  as  may  tend  to  the  mutual  advantage  and 
welfare  of  both  Churches,  not  inconsistent  with  the  Con- 
stitution and  Canons  of  this  Church. ' ' 

This  committee  attended  the  meeting  of  the  Synod  held 
at  Lau's  Church,  Guilford  county,  June  17th,  182 1,  with  a 
letter  from  Bishop  Moore,  conveying  to  that  body  informa- 
tion concerning  the  above  action  of  the  Convention.  The 
minutes  of  the  Synod  record  that  this  committee  "were  all 
affectionately  received,"  and  a  committee  appointed  to 
confer  with  them,  namely  :  the  Revs.  G.  Shober,  and 
Michael  Ranch,  and  Henry  Ratz,  Esq.  The  result  of  the 
conference  between  the  two  committees  was  a  series  of 
Resolutions,  to  be  found  on  page  n  of  the  Journal  of  the 
Convention  of  1822.  They  declare  that  it  is  deemed  "ex- 
pedient and  desirable  that  the  Lutheran  Synod,  and  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  North  Carolina,  should  be 
united  together  in  the  closest  bonds  of  friendship,"  they 
therefore  provide  that  each  of  these  bodies  "may  send  a 
delegation  of  one  or  more  persons,"  to  the  other.,  and  that 
these  delegates  shall  be  entitled  to  speak  and  to  vote  "in 
all  cases  except  when  a  division  is  called  for,  in  which 


408 

case  thev  shall  not  vote;"  and  they  further  provide  that 
all  ministers  of  either  body  shall  be  entitled  to  honorary 
seats  in  the  other.  These  resolutions  were  at  once  adopted 
by  the  Synod,  and  the  Revs.  G.  Shober  and  Jacob  Seherer, 
and  Henry  Ratz,  Esq.,  were  appointed  delegates  to  the 
Convention  appointed  to  meet  at  Raleigh  in  April,  1822. 

Xont  of  the  Lutheran  delegates  attended  this  Conven- 
tion of  1822,  but  our  committee  presented  the  report  and 
resolutions  agreed  upon  in  conference  with  the  Lutherans, 
and  adopted  by  the  Synod,  together  with  a  letter  from  the 
Rev.  Gottlieb  Shober;  and  the  resolutions  were  unani- 
mously adopted.  At  the  same  meeting  Messrs.  Miller, 
Wright,  and  Davis,  of  the  clergy,  and  Messrs.  Alexander 
Caldcleugh  and  Duncan  Cameron,  of  the  laity,  were 
appointed  delegates  to  the  Synod. 

In  the  Journal  of  the  Convention  held  at  Salisbury  in 
1823,  amonR  the  names  of  the  attending  members,  we  find 
the  following  :  "The  Rev.  G.  Shober,  the  Rev.  Daniel 
vSherer,  Gen.  Paul  Barringer  and  Col.  Henry  Ratz;"  and 
on  a  subsequent  page  we  find  that  the  Revs.  Messrs.  Mil- 
ler and  Davis  of  the  clergy  and  Messrs.  Win.  R.  Holt  and 
Alexander  Caldcleugh,  of  the  laity,  were  appointed  dele- 
gates to  the  next  meeting  of  the  Synod. 

With  the  Convention  of  1823  all  mention  of  delegates  to 
or  from  the  Lutheran  Synod  disappears  from  our  records, 
though  no  formal  action  was  taken  to  repeal  the  "Frater- 
nal Union,'1  and  under  it  a  delegation  from  either  body 
might  still  probably  be  entitled  to  a  seat  in  the  other. 
Hut  the  Lutherans  and  the  Episcopalians  were  mostly  set- 
tled in  different  and  distant  sections  of  the  State,  and  each 
body  held  its  meetings  in  towns  usually  inconvenient  for 
the  attendance  of  the  other.  There  were  therefore  difficul- 
ties in  parrying  out  this  arrangement,  while  no  correspond- 
ing benefits  seemed  likely  to  arise.  The  Convention  of 
1823  was  held  in  Salisbury:  hence  the  full  attendance  ot 
the  Lutheran  delegation  at  that  Convention.     It  was  not 


409 

until  1840  that  another  Convention  met  so  far  west,  with 
one  exception;  and  we  hear  no  more  of  delegations  from 
Synod  or  Convention. 

But  tt  ough  this  may  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  fact 
of  the  interchange  of  delegations  having  ceased,  yet  there 
were  probably  other  causes  lying  deeper,  which  even 
under  more  favorable  circumstances  would  have  made  the 
result  not  less  sure.  By  the  consecration  of  a  Bishop  for 
North  Carolina,  and  by  the  clear  and  positive  teaching 
of  Bishop  Ravenscroft,  the  differences  between  Luth- 
erans and  Episcopalians  must  have  come  out  with  a  dis- 
tinctness unknown  before.  Although  several  of  the  Luth- 
eran Churches  in  Europe  had  preserved  the  Episcopate, 
and  the  old  Swedish  Churches  in  Pennsylvania  and  in  Del- 
eware  had  united  with  the  Church  in  those  Dioceses  and 
acknowledged  the  pastoral  government  of  the  Bishop,  the 
North  Carolina  Lutherans  were  not  at  all  inclined  to  such  a 
union  as  this.  They  had  drawn  their  pastors  and  teachers 
mostly  from  Hanover,  and,  as  has  been  already  pointed 
out,  they  had  fallen  off  very  much  from  the  purity  of  early 
Lutheranism.  The  Augsburg  Confession  had  been  brand- 
ed by  the  North  Carolina  Synod  as  tainted  with  Roman- 
ism, and  for  some  years  they  had  allowed  unordained  men 
to  administer  both  sacraments.  Liturgical  services  had 
very  generally  fallen  into  disuse  among  them,  and  at  this 
very  time  the  most  acrimonious  controversy  was  raging, 
and  a  schism  had  already  been  made  in  their  body,  caused 
chiefly  by  this  back-sliding  from  their  old  principles.  The 
leading  man  in  the  Synod  was  the  Rev.  Gottlieb  Shober, 
not  a  Lutheran  at  all  in  doctrine,  but  a  professed  Moravian, 
who  seems  to  have  had  little  or  no  respect  for  the  ancient 
Lutheran  position.  The  fact  that  two  of  their  most  emi- 
nent preachers,  Mr.  Shober  and  Mr.  Miller,  were  professed 
believers  in  and  adherents  of  a  different  ecclesiastical 
polity,  and  were  of  different  doctrinal  views  from  those 
peculiar  to  Lutheranism,  is  a  sufficient  commentary  upon 


4io 

the  condition  of  Lutheranism  in  North  Carolina  at  that 

time. 

It  is  beyond  all  question  that  Mr.  Miller's  amiable  desire 
for  a  closer  union  with  the  Lutherans  had  involved  his 
own  people  in  the  same  defection  from  those  principles 
which  they  held  in  common,  besides  weaning  them  from 
the  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Church.  Bishop  Ravens- 
croft's  great  work  was  to  sound  the  trumpet  with  so  cer- 
tain and  distinct  a  blast  that  no  one  'could  mistake  it;  and 
to  find  out  who  in  North  Carolina  was  on  the  side  of  the 
Church  as  a  matter  of  conscience  and  with  intelligent 
convictions  of  truth  and  duty.  Even  had  the  principles 
of  Churchmen  and  of  Lutherans  been  much  more  in  accord 
than  they  were,  there  could  have  been  no  sort  of  sympathy 
between  the  spirit  which  under  the  new  administration 
began  to  animate  the  Church  in  this  State,  and  that  which 
prevailed  among  their  Lutheran  brethren. 

But  again,  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  Church 
being  the  maintenance,  not  only  of  primitive  truth,  but  of 
Apostolic  Order  as  well,  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that 
those  who  had  so  far  departed  from  this  latter  as  to  allow 
the  sacraments  to  be  administered  by  men  who  had  no 
kind  of  ordination  whatever,  could  remain  in  such  perfect 
accord  with  the  Church  under  Bishop  Ravenscroft,  as  to 
take  part  in  her  councils  and  legislation.  It  is  pleasant  to 
remember  this  long  co-operation  and  friendship,  and  we 
trust  that  the  good  will,  implied  in  it  all,  continues  to 
animate  both  our  Lutheran  brethren  and  ourselves;  but 
such  a  union  as  the  one  attempted  was  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  impracticable. 


4ii 


NOTE  ON  THE  REV.  HATCH  DENT. 

In  a  list  of  "Names  and  Places  of  the  Clergy"  among 
the  Pettigrew  MSS.  given  in  connection  with  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Tarborough  Conventions  of  1790 — 94,  after 
the  names  of  seven  Clergymen,  numbered  consecutively, 
and  their  fields  of  labor  designated,  there  is  added,  '  'the  Rev. 
Mr.  Dent,  near  the  Yadkin  river."  This  was  the  Rev. 
Hatch  Dent,  of  Maryland.  He  was  ordered  Deacon  by 
Bishop  Seabnry  at  the  same  time  with  William  Duke, 
October  16th,  1785.  Both  these  names  occur  in  the  earli- 
est list  furnished  the  General  Convention  of  the  Clergy  of 
Maryland,  in  1792.  His  name  is  absent  from  the  list  of 
1795,  but  re-appears  in  that  of  1799.  In  Rumple' s  History 
of  Rowan  county,  page  408,  Mr.  Henderson  states  that  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Dent  came  from  Maryland  to  Rowan  county  with 
quite  a  Colony  of  Churchmen  about  the  year  1794,  and 
purchased  a  farm,  but  remained  only  a  few  years.  He 
was  an  uncle  of  two  clergymen  of  North  Carolina,  Richard 
W.  Barber  and  Samuel  S.  Barber.  In  a  biographical 
sketch  of  Win.  Wirt,  prefixed  to  an  edition  of  The  British 
Spy,  I  have  seen  it  stated  that  William  Wirt  about  the 
year  1780  went  to  a  classical  school  taught  by  Hatch  Dent 
in  Charles  county,  Maryland,  about  forty  miles  from 
Bladensburg.  His  school  room  was  "the  vestry-house  of 
Newport  Church."  He  is  said  to  have  been  "a  most  ex- 
cellent man,  very  good-tempered" — certainly  high  praise 
lor  a  school-master  in  those  days.  Many  of  his  pupils 
afterwards  became  eminent  men. 


APPENDIX. 


N.C   #204    Z99A    v.  2  1900-30 
no  s. 24-40  P42923 


